Empirical Study On Internet Used In Government Crisis P.R. Based On Diffusion Of Innovation Theory

With the acceleration of globalization and rapid development of information technology, the theory"Risky Society", proposed by German sociologist Beck and British Giddens, indicates that post-industrialized society is definitely full of crisis and risk.Singly seen from the perspective of national social environment, both 2003"SARS"and 2008"Sichuan Earthquake"notify that China has stepped into the era of"risky society"formally. How to settle kinds of crises successfully has become a great challenge for contemporary government. In practice, government crisis P.R. mainly depends on five strategies: media, issue, leader, staff and the-third-representative P.R. in all of which media P.R. is the most important strategy. Consequently, the efficiency of government crisis P.R. has a great close link with the capability of government's applying media comprehensively. Media is the most essential tool and method.According to an authoritative survey and statistic, during crisis management government prefers centric comprehensive media best, particularly CCTV, CNR (China National Radio) and CIR (China International Radio), accounting a rate of 82%. Although it also attaches importance to the new Internet media, the first-adoption rate is apparently lower than the enterprise, with respective rates of 9.6% and 27.4%. Actually, in the recent years Internet media has soared as one of the main forces in government crisis P.R. due to its special digital techniques like the time-efficiency, interactive communication and multi-media effects. For instance, the first news in 2008 Sichuan Earthquake was just issued by xinhua net. Hence, the main task of this paper is to study the diffusion pattern and practical strategy of Internet media used in government crisis P.R.In order to research this problem deeply, this paper carried out an empirical study from the angle of Roger's theory"Diffusion of Innovation", made clear definitions of independent variables (influential elements of diffusion) and dependent variables (rate of diffusion), and adopted the methods of content analysis and data statistic, to analyse the relationship between the two variables, propose research hypotheses, structure diffusion pattern and naturally conclude the following points:Firstly, the adoption pattern of Internet in government crisis P.R. appears an"S-shaped"curve; Secondly, three dimensional elements greatly affected the diffusion rate of Internet: innovative features of Internet media, special features of government organization and public media literacy.Thirdly, as for the concrete practical strategies, government will combine the traditional and innovative tactics in network communication.Finally, on basis of the empirical study, the author put forwards some useful suggestion about how to construct preferred and effective application modes in government net crisis P.R, such as enhancing the"Agenda-setting"function of net news, emphasizing the"Opinion leader"impact on net forum and Cultivating the"Immune"effects in net education and so on.